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среда, 21 июня 2017 г.

Antarctica ( Antarctique ). A voyage to Antarctica.

No place on Earth compares to this vast white
wilderness of elemental forces: snow, ice, water, rock. Antarctica is
simply stunning.

History

The
names of explorers and their sovereigns and benefactors are written on
Antarctica’s shores. Renowned explorers from Cook to Amundsen and Scott
all tried to penetrate this vast, mysterious land: each with varying
degrees of success. Visitors can follow in their footsteps and imagine
what it was like to forge through the pack ice on a creaking wooden boat
or to haul sledges across the polar plateau. Some of the historic huts
actually remain, preserved frozen in rime ice, to tell the story of
adventures long past.

This
continent, preserved by the Antarctic Treaty, is home to some of the
world’s most extraordinary species, adapted to life in their unique
home. Some, such as the enormous whales, migrate far and wide, while
others, such as the Weddell seal and the emperor penguin, remain close
to the continent. Millions of seabirds skim the Southern Ocean,
the world’s most abundant, and species such as far-flung albatrosses
and petrels circle these waters. Antarctic wildlife is generally
unafraid of humans. Visitors usually elicit no more than an uninterested
yawn from seals and penguins focused on rearing their young and evading
predators. The human reaction is, ironically, exactly opposite.

Inspiration

Antarctica
possesses an unnameable quality. Call it inspiration, call it
grandeur…it is simply the indescribable feeling of being a small speck
in a vast, harshly beautiful land. A land where striated ice towers
float among geometric pancake ice, literally untouched mountains rear
from marine mist, and wildlife lives, year in and year out, to its own
rhythms, quite apart from human concerns. To let our minds soar in a
place nearly free of humankind’s imprint: this is magic.

Adventure

Antarctica’s
surreal remoteness, extreme cold, enormous ice shelves and mountain
ranges, and myriad exotic life forms invariably challenge you to embrace
life fully. Everyone – scientist, support worker, government official
and tourist alike – who comes to this isolated continent, must ‘earn’
it, whether by sea voyage or flight. Ice and weather, not clocks and
calendars, determine the itinerary and the timetable of all travel here.
Expect experiences unlike any other, whether whale-watching across the
open sea, spying a penguin rookery, or framing that perfect photograph
of an awe-inspiring ice-form. Today, it’s even possible for visitors to
climb Antarctic peaks or kayak icy waters. But there is nothing quite
like the craggy crevasses of a magnificent glacier or the sheer expanse
of the polar ice cap.